Re: synapsids are reptiles

(shortened)

              ____________________________Diadectomorpha

              |

              |              ________________________Synapsida

              |              |

              |              |                    _Anapsida

Amniota_|              |                    |

              |              |                    |

              |_Reptilia_|                    |

                             |                    |

                             |_Sauropsida_|

                                                  |

                                                  |_Romeriida

Amniota is defined otherwise (as a node, BTW), and so is Reptilia:

_____________________Diadectomorpha

unnamed_| ___________Theropsida = Synapsida

| |

|_Amniota_| _Anapsida

| |

|_Sauropsida = Reptilia = Eureptilia_|

|_Romeriida

"Unnamed" is called "Amniotiformes" in http://dinosauricon.com/taxa/tetrapoda.html (good idea) and Stegocephali by Laurin & Reisz (I hate them for that). Sauropsida is stem-based, Reptilia and Eureptilia have (AFAIK different) node-based definitions, so they are the same only in currently known contents.

3) "The situation in amniote phylogeny is so solid".

I cannot agree with this statement, unless the "solidity" is restricted to the fact that synapsids diverged before sauropsids.

Consensus extends quite far into Ther- and Sauropsida.

4) "It is better to abandon the term [R]eptilia [as a scientific name]".

The language and the terms are important, at least at educative level, and the historical term Reptilia has acquired an high semantic value that cannot easily dismissed,

Sure it can. Pisces has been dismissed. :-)

it recalls immediately amniotic primitivity (although actual lizards and snakes are not primitive).

One more reason not to use it. :-)

After all A.S. Romer himself in his "The vertebrate story- 1967" defined the amniotic egg as the reptilian egg.

That was long before phylogenetic taxonomy... anyway, he didn't consider monotremes and birds reptiles and nevertheless called their eggs amniotic. Romer has done great deeds, and it was a good idea by the SVP to name a prize after him, but there's no need to make a demi-god of him. :-)